Blessed

Jack's birthday and baptism day, 2 February 2008. (Get a load of his hair -- he did finally get a haircut. He turns 9 this Monday!)

Our family, hanging out at our friends' home. Jack is sporting his crazy boy grin.

Tim and Luke, on a walk in San Diego.

Tim and Parker, the day Parker was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic priesthood (24 August 2008).


I wasn't sure if I should title this "Blessed" or "Lucky." Either feels accurate. "Blessed AND Lucky" is probably most accurate.

Tim had ACL reconstruction surgery on Monday. The surgery went well, but things got a little dicey post-op. While he was still pretty heavily sedated, his upper-body was placed upright in the bed. His chin dropped to his chest, obstructing his breathing. His lungs kept trying to breathe, though, because that's what lungs do. This created negative pressure and pulled fluid into his lungs -- pulmonary edema. Tim told me later that when he woke up from the surgery, he felt like he had "swallowed a swimming pool."

About an hour or so before this happened, I left the hospital for a little while to get a break. Tim was still sleeping, and they told me that it would be at least an hour before I could see him. When I got back to the hospital an hour or so later, I was told that I still couldn't see him. I asked why, since it had been 2 1/2 to 3 hours since the surgery had ended. The woman relaying the information said, "You can't see him now. A nurse will be out shortly to tell you what is going on." Those words struck fear in my heart. I was already nervous about this surgery -- I joked with Tim right before he went in to surgery about how he should stay far away from "the light" or any tunnels with lights at the end of them. "Don't go toward the light," I said. He laughed as they wheeled him out of the room toward the OR.

I sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, waiting for the nurse to come tell me what was going on and trying to keep my composure. I had a feeling something was wrong. Then the woman returned and informed me that the nurse was aware that I was waiting, and that she would be there as soon as she had a free minute so that she could tell me what was happening. That about sent me over the edge. I started worrying that she didn't have a free minute to come talk to me because she was too busy trying to resuscitate my husband. Then I waited another 45 minutes. It felt like an eternity.

While I was waiting, my friend, Brook, text messaged me to find out how the surgery went. I told her what I knew (which wasn't much), and she was as worried as I was. She told her husband, Rich, who then asked if he could come wait with me. I told him I would appreciate it. (If I got any bad news, I did not want to be alone when I got it.)

At that point, I was mad at myself for not remembering to call Tim's family or mine to tell them that he was having surgery so that they could remember him in their prayers. Tim did have a priesthood blessing on Sunday night, and we did say our usual family prayer Sunday night before we took our two older boys to spend the night at our friends' home. And Tim and I prayed Monday morning before we left for the hospital. My prayers in the hospital waiting room became especially fervent, and in my desperation, I did some bargaining with Heavenly Father. I haven't told Tim yet, but we are going to need to serve a mission in our golden years. :-) (Although he won't be too surprised -- we've already talked about going someday.)

Anyway, shortly after Rich got to the hospital, he saw them wheel Tim into a recovery room. We were both very relieved to see that he was awake.

Luckily, Tim is fine -- he's young, he's healthy, he doesn't smoke, and he is a marathoner, so he's got excellent lungs. His lungs healed up very quickly. I think he was just pulling a "Raymond" to see how much everybody loves him (if you saw the series finale of "Everybody Loves Raymond," you know what I'm talking about). Everybody loves Timothy.

We want to thank the following people for helping us out this week:

~Our friends, Guy and Mary, for allowing Parker and Jack to spend the night at their home Sunday night and then getting them off to school Monday morning. (We had to be at the hospital at 5:30 am Monday morning, so that was a huge help.) They even kept the boys Monday night for good measure. We couldn't have done it without their help.

~Joel, for taking Luke all day on Monday so that we didn't have to deal with his antics at the hospital. Luke had the time of his life at the air base with all the firemen. Apparently, they all tried to outdo one another by seeing who could give Luke the best cookies. It was Luke's day in the sun -- he was the center of attention. When I told Luke he was going to get to spend the day with the firemen, he said, "Ironman?" I said, "No, firemen." But Luke was right -- they are all Ironmen.

~Brook and Richard -- Brook, for sending me all the love and support she could through a text message, and Richard, for meeting me at the hospital in my hour of need. They kept me from having a complete meltdown that day in the hospital waiting room. And then Brook brought us dinner that night and Rich fixed our computer.

~Tim's 1st counselor in the Young Men Presidency (Gene), a couple of the young men (Andrew and John), and the bishop of our ward, for bringing our family delicious cookies Wednesday night.

~The Elders Quorum President (Steve) and one of his counselors (Kurt), for visiting us shortly after the above motley crew left.

~Robin, for bringing us dinner last night. (It is showing that I posted this entry on Thursday, but I actually didn't finish writing it until Saturday night. Robin brought us dinner on Friday.) Robin has a terrible disease called Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, and it is very difficult for him to get around. We were incredibly touched that he would buy food for us and drive it all the way up to our home -- it was a huge sacrifice for him.

~All the friends who have called and emailed us this week to offer support (and dinners).

We are truly blessed. Tim is alive and well, and we have great friends and family.

Life is good.

Luke

I had a dentist appointment last Thursday. I brought Luke with me into the exam room when the dentist examined my teeth so that he could see it's not scary to visit the dentist. After my exam (no cavities), the dentist let Luke sit in "the chair" while he raised and lowered it. When Luke got down, he told the dentist he wanted some blue gloves. (The dentist was wearing blue latex gloves for my exam.) The dentist put some blue gloves on Luke's hands and then Luke turned to me and said, "Get in the chair, Mom." I got in the chair and Luke proceeded to look in my mouth.

After we left the dentist's office, we went next door to Tim's office to say hi. Tim was busy with patients, so we only stayed for a minute. When it was time to leave, Luke cried.

Luke (crying loudly): I want to stay with Daddy!
Me: You can't stay with Daddy, sweetie, he has to see patients.
Luke (still crying loudly): I want to see patients, too!

Perhaps Luke will be a doctor someday, but first he has to learn to not throw tantrums in public places.

Sisters

I love this picture that my dad took of me and my younger sister, Aimee, when we were visiting friends in UT. (I'm on the left, Aimee is on the right.) I can't remember how old we were -- I'm guessing I was 6 and Aim was 5. We got to play in the snow -- this was a rare occurrence for two girls raised in AZ. (To be more specific, we were raised in The Valley of the Sun.) Anyway, we made some good snowballs that day.

*

Get a load of what I was wearing. A striped shirt and a leather jacket with fringe. Nice.

Loosh

Tim took me to see Josh Groban in concert in April 2007. (I love Josh Groban so much that Tim calls him my boyfriend.) It was a great evening.

I enjoyed Josh's singing, but Lucia Micarelli stole the show. She played a solo and it was one of the highlights of the night. Here's a video that someone posted at YouTube of Loosh playing her solo at a Groban concert in Pittsburgh. A video can't possibly do her performance justice, but it gives you an idea of how amazing she is.

It starts out with Lucia playing by herself, but after about 2 1/2 minutes, things get interesting. Lucia rocks.

(If you want to watch the video, go down to the bottom of this page and pause my playlist or you will hear that music and the video at the same time. And I apologize for the huge gap between this text and the video -- I can't get rid of it. Apparently, it is in the html code for the video, and since I don't know html, I can't get rid of the spaces. So scroll on down...)

I bet you never thought you'd hear someone play "Kashmir" on the violin.

Wheels

We went to AZ for a week and the boys brought a skateboard, longboard, and scooter. It was sunny and beautiful in AZ, as you can see in these pictures, so the boys had some fun outside on their wheels with their little cousin, Mo. These pictures were taken in the neighborhood where my grandparents lived while I was growing up. My grandparents have both passed away and now my sister and her family live in my grandparents' home. It was fun to stay with Emily, Roger, and Mo in a home and neighborhood that hold so many wonderful memories.


As his Auntie Em said, Jack is "too cool for school." (This is on my grandparents' front porch.)


Razor Jack.


Luke.



Cousin Mo rides the longboard. Look at his cute smile and get a load of that beautiful blue sky!


Parker, airborne. ("You got like 3 feet of air that time.")




Parker and Mo go for a spin on the skateboard. The sky is as blue as Parker's shirt.

We came home from this AZ trip to cold, damp, foggy weather. The sky was a depressing shade of gray. Luckily, the next day the weather here was nice and the sun came out or we might have decided to become snowbirds.

PS-You can see in these pictures that Parker was in dire need of a haircut. He got one tonight.

PPS-Thanks, Em, for all the pictures! You are a great photog. You must take after Dad.

Boys

They are my reasons for waking up in the morning, partly because they come in our bedroom and literally wake me up. They make my days both hectic and fun, but mostly fun. They are really good boys. I hope I tell them that enough.

Lunacy

Tonight is a great night for moon-watchers -- go out and take a look. According to NASA, this is as big and as bright as the moon will get this year. Cool.

In a (perhaps) related story, people all around the world (NY, Boston, Vienna, Toronto, Tokyo, etc.) met today at their respective subways at 3 pm sharp and took off their pants for a "No Pants 2K9" subway ride. (Gratefully, these folks kept their underwear on, so, you know, no "full moons" were hanging out on these subways.) What's funny/sad is that there was a "No Pants 2K3," "No Pants 2K4," etc. This has been going on for 7 years. How have I not heard of it before? (Thanks, MSN.com, for keeping me abreast of all important news happening in the world.)

Apparently, this "no pants" prank lasted until 5:30 pm. Participants were instructed to keep a straight face and not talk to anyone while they rode the subway sans pants. What in the world? These people are lunatics. (It's cold out there! Why not have it in July? I'd still think they were crazy, but at least not stone cold crazy.)

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read that someone was trying to organize a "No Pants 2K9" in Salt Lake City. I am wondering how that went over.

What is this world coming to?

Anyway, go outside and check out the moon. It's big and bright and beautiful.

Genesis

I am leaping -- I am closing my eyes tightly and jumping in. It's a little scary -- like going off the high dive at the local pool. I hope I don't do a belly flop or flail my arms wildly like a crazy person while I fall.

I welcome the friends and family whom I will invite to my blog, but I also welcome strangers who might happen upon my blog.

I wish I could guarantee that I will be any good at blogging, but I can't. I don't know if anything I write will be even remotely interesting to anyone else, but regardless, it will be good for me to write. Sometimes I need to examine the stuff in my head, and getting it down in black and white might help me process the experiences of this life. (In the vein of that question about the tree falling in the forest, if someone writes a blog and no one reads it, does it count? My hope is that it does, because maybe no one will read this.)

I diligently kept a journal throughout junior high, high school, and college. For some reason, however, my journal keeping became erratic after I graduated from college and got married. I regret this, but I am also determined to resume that wonderful habit. This blog will serve as a journal of sorts.

So, if you are reading this, welcome to my blog. I hope you will feel comfortable (and not too terribly bored) here. And please come back and visit.

Now what?